Thursday, October 15, 2015

Into the Land of the Elves: A Little Human Magic

The
Diary of Miss Aidyn Hall, friend of the Jadeites

August
17

4:40
PM

A
Little Human Magic

“All
right, now move to the right just a little bit...an inch or two
should do it, that's it. Tilt your head a bit—the camera wants to
see a little more of that smile! Crystalline, why don't you make a
nice pose so the camera can see your pretty dress?”

Maybe
the idea of posing for pictures is new to Jadeites, but at least it
wouldn't be a chore to get a smile out of them. They both had the
silly giggles, and the very best smiles come from the silly giggles.
Apple Blossom wrapped both arms around Crystalline. I took the
picture, and then I took two more for good measure. “Do you want to
see them?” I asked.

“We
can see them now?” Crystalline asked, bewildered.

“Yep,”
I said, “I just took three of them.”

“We
don't have to stand here and wait for the picture to be finished?”

“No,
sweetie,” I said with a chuckle, “it is
finished.
Come and see!”

The
two of them were very skeptical, but they still hurried over to see
the pictures. The wide open eyes and mouths were absolutely
priceless. “That's exactly how we look!” “It's like a picture
mirror!” “How did it do that, though?” The two of them looked
at me like I was some kind of witch.

I
explained: “A camera is a device that uses light to make an exact
copy of what it sees.”

“But
I didn't see any light,” Crystalline said doubtfully.

“The
light is inside,” I told her, holding out my phone. “On old
cameras and on the big cameras used in studios, you can see the
light. But on phone cameras like this, it's hidden inside.”

“Humans
can do magic too,” Apple Blossom told Crystalline matter-of-factly.
“When I was at Aidyn's house, I saw her press a button to make
pictures move around in a glass box.” I had never thought of
technology as “human magic” before, and I liked the idea
immensely.

Of
course, the girls had me take several more pictures, all with
different poses and faces, and now my phone is filled with them. I'm
going to upload them to the computer, then print them into a photo
book to give to Apple Blossom. But right now, I am going to go visit
my friend Katie.

8:32
PM

I
showed Katie the one picture of the girls that I had kept on my
phone, and when she regarded it with a friendly smile, I swiftly
aimed the phone camera and snapped. Apple Blossom and her friends
would like a genuine example of a kindly smile from a human. Whenever
somebody is asked to smile for a picture, the smile is almost
guaranteed to look forced (I've noticed that my own headshots tend to
have this problem). The only way to get a real smile is to wait for
one to show up.

Luckily,
I managed to snap the picture in the split second before she turned
her head and asked, “Did you just take a picture of me, Aidyn?”

“I
did,” I told her. “I'm going to show it to Apple Blossom.”

“Well,
geez, take another!” Katie said. She tilted her head jauntily and
grinned from ear to ear, and as expected, it looked totally forced.
“One is enough,” I told her, “and I like this one better.”

“I
have some things to give to Apple Blossom,” Katie said. “Can you
tell me if she'd like this stuff?”

My
mind was blown. “Well, show me,” I said.

She
took a small Ziploc bag down from a bookshelf. “I was doing some
reading about elves on the Internet,” she said, “and what I read
said that elves like gifts and small trinkets.” She handed me the
bag and I examined the contents. She had raided the supply baskets at
her sewing shop; there were two shiny pearl buttons, three grosgrain
ribbons long enough to be tied around pigtails, two fully-crafted
bows attached to brooch pins, and a small bouquet of silk flowers
tied with lace. To be honest, I wasn't sure if she would like any of
it—she had plenty of stuff like this and more. But it made me so
happy to see that Katie was making a genuine effort to be a friend to
her, and I knew that Apple Blossom would appreciate it just for that.
“This is wonderful, Katie!” I told her. “Thank you! I'll bring
it over for her tomorrow...and I'll be sure to get a picture of the
resulting smiles!”

But
when I got home, I got a better idea: I could use these small
materials to decorate the cover of the photo book. The book will be
made from a three-ring binder and include several blank pages, so
that it can be added to and allow room for small treasures to be
pasted in as well (I know that human little girls like to paste small
things in scrapbooks, and Jadeite little girls aren't very different
from human little girls).

I
haven't done a scrapbook in a good long while. This is going to be
fun!

August
18

2:27
PM

The
only empty three-ring binder I had lying around was in an ugly shade
of charcoal black...meaning that it would be even more fun to make it
pretty! I drove out to the store to pick up some photo paper and a
pack of cardstock, and then I got to work.

The
bows on brooch pins I decided to set aside as a separate gift, but
the three ribbons—pink, blue, and seafoam green—made for a lovely
border around “Treasured Photos” written in script with a gold
gel pen. I untied the nosegay of silk flowers, cut each one from the
stems, and pasted them around the cover. There was nothing to do with
the lace, so I set it aside in case I could use it later. Finally, I
glued a pearl button in the upper left hand corner and a pearl button
in the lower right hand corner.

While
the cover dried, I pasted in the photos, starting with a full-page
photo of Apple Blossom and Crystalline, and ending with a full-page
photo of Katie's candid smile. I included the pictures of the garden
and mini forest that I had taken, and by the time I was done I could
already envision Apple Blossom's ear-to-ear smile as she received the
book. When I met her at the bridge after lunch, I got to see it for
real.

I
read her some more of the diary today (specifically, the part where
we went swimming in the Bell's Rush), read her some more of my story
about the knight and the fairy queen, and now she's busy decorating
the pages of the photo book. She seems awfully preoccupied with that
picture of Katie. I guess I did a pretty good job of capturing the
genuine warmth in that smile. I think it's fine for me to skip
reading the next diary entry. Apple Blossom doesn't need to know
about my abandoned bad idea to publish my Greenwood adventures.
Besides, she's more interested in the entries that feature her. That
means skipping straight to the time I stole Chicory's jade stones...

But
am I going to be able to read through that without revealing the
other half of it?

2:40
PM (according to Apple Blossom)

Apple
Blossom knows how to tell time by reading the position of the sun. I
don't, so this timestamp is only a rough estimate.

I
have just reread all of the entries in which I stole the jade stones.
I don't think that I could get away with skipping—Apple Blossom
will catch it and call me out on it. Besides, that project idea takes
up a lot of entries after that, including the days we spent
researching in the library. Everything I've done in the Greenwood
during that time frame was all about acquiring information for my own
novel, for my own gain. That's almost like I was using the Jadeites.
How horrible was I?

In
that case, Apple Blossom didn't know she was being used. Is it best
if she never knows? If I were being used, I would want to know...so I
could avoid the heck out of whoever it was that dared to use me. But
what applies to me may not apply to Apple Blossom. I would be angry.
She might be crushed.

I
need to think this through. Until then, I won't be reading the diary
at all. I'll just be reading the fairy queen story. Hopefully she
will be happy with that. And really, it is my personal diary. I have
every right not to read it if I don't want to.

Holly Berry and Crystalline have just been escorted in, and I'm sure they'll
want me to keep them company for a while.

6:12
PM

Apple Blossom's photo book got about
thirteen new entries this afternoon, from out in the palace garden
and from our romp through the wild berry fields. Now that I'm clean
and free of berry juice, I'm sitting here waiting for them to print.
There are some great shots of the girls sitting under the flower
arches and the blossom trees in the garden, as well as several pics
of our berry-juice-smudged faces and the huge bushels of berries I
was surprised such small girls could carry between them. I think
Katie will especially appreciate the selfie of my juice-spotted
face—the aftermath of Holly Berry's brilliant idea to chuck the
excess berries at eachother instead of just throwing them away. I'm
texting her the picture right now...

...and of course, as always, I now
have to tend to the massive pile of texts she's been sending me over
the course of the day. Doesn't that girl ever have anything else to
do on a weekend? It's only a little after six, there's no reason I
can't just go over there. I can show her the rest of the pictures,
too, including Apple Blossom's priceless smile upon receiving the
photo book. You know, the pic that I promised her I'd get.

About Me

I'm Star Nova, and I like to tell stories. This blog used to be more topical, but then just became a place where I could easily hold my stories. I have several short stories and two big works in progress, as well as some old crap and some pending revisions OF some old crap.
I write in order to share how I see the world, from my own perspective. If you're here, you're probably here from Tumblr or Twitter. I hope you like my stories. And if you don't, I hope you at least read them before you decide that. (: